“Show me!” Hadjar interrupted her desperately.
“As you wish,” a tear rolled down the Shadow’s cheek. “It was a long time ago. So long ago that neither the wind nor the earth remember it. Back then, I was young and worked in the Palace of Knowledge as a junior servant…”
As the story progressed, the image of the girl thinned out, and at the same time, became more voluminous. Hadjar seemed to sink through her face. He went deeper and deeper into her memories that looked indistinguishable from reality.
The fall from a great height inside the magical visage ended in soft grass. At first, Hadjar didn’t know where he was, but his eyes soon became accustomed to the abundance of color and light, and a sigh of admiration escaped his lips. He was in the midst of hills covered in meadows and flower glades. They were so bright and colorful that they looked more like paint splashed across an artist’s canvas.
In the distance, the peaks of great mountains towered, covered with trees. Cries of birds came from those trees, and in the sky, he could see many spires, with rays of powerful, dense energy radiating out from them. It expanded through the clouds, spreading across the azure like blue veins, reaching someplace far on the horizon. Hadjar easily recognized the now-lifeless rocks and the crumbling library building. Except everything was teeming with life, and beauty, and power.
A gaggle of laughing children ran past. They were running after a kite. It wasn’t held by a thread or anything else. It just flew through the air, and the children ran after it. Some of them rushed past Hadjar, and some ran right through him.
“This is just a memory,” the voice said behind him. “Nothing more.”
Hadjar turned around.
Chapter 397
A girl stood before him. She was a very plain eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl. She had thick, brown hair, wore a blue and white dress, and numerous gold bracelets and necklaces adorned her thin neck. She wore odd ornaments on both her hands — blue discs set in gold frames, lying on a thin, golden net. The base of it was attached to a wide bracelet and the top itself was attached to the ring.
“This is what I looked like back then,” she said.
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. The gesture was simple and gentle. Her blue eyes glowed with joy and naughtiness. She smelled like a garden in the morning and fresh dew.
How could the gods destroy anything so innocent and good? The place Hadjar was in didn’t look like a grim fortress of knowledge and wisdom, but rather, a haven filled with peace and solitude, enjoying an eternal summer forever transitioning smoothly into autumn.
“Follow me.”
The girl... or her memory... her Shadow... held out her hand to Hadjar. He took it, and she led him to a pond. Surrounded by tall trees, the sight of it forced Hadjar to grasp the hilt of his sword. He recognized where they were: not so long ago, the golem and the sand spirits had destroyed a whole squad of seekers in this very spot. Although... that hadn’t even happened yet.
In the centre of the pond... stood the girl who was also next to him.
“That’s me,” she said a little sadly.
Hadjar looked closely. The strange jewelry on the girl’s hands radiated a subdued, blue light. Standing waist-deep in the water, she swayed to a tune only she could hear. It looked like a simple dance, but after each movement of the girl’s hands, long ribbons of water stretched out of the pond. They followed her hands, assuming the forms of birds and dragons. Most surprising of all, Hadjar didn’t feel a single disturbance in the currents of energy around them. The girl’s actions could’ve been seen as her simply practicing some Techniques, if not for the complete absence of disturbances in the energy flows. It seemed like the water was actually obeying the sorceress’ commands, following the guidance of the girl’s hands.
Hadjar tried to sense what was going on. He tried to determine the power of the sorceress, but couldn’t. This girl, who was younger than twenty, was at such a high level that he wasn’t able to determine her might at all. And that was more frightening than anything else. Even when he’d spoken to Harlim, the Immortal, Hadjar had been able to sense the sparks of his incredible energy. But here, he felt nothing.
“It happened on that very day,” the shadow said and pointed to the sky.
The blue sky was suddenly covered with a gray veil. Clouds were gathering, thickening, and darkening. It began to rain. The rain was so strong and sharp that it pierced the leaves.
Obeying the wind, the water in the pond surged up, but the high waves crashed into the ‘calm island’. In the center, the sorceress still stood. She put her hands on the surface of the water and it glowed blue, ignoring the gathering storm.
Suddenly, there was a black flash in the sky. A lightning bolt the color of wet coal cut through the clouds and struck the ground. Then came the deafening thunder. The lightning bolt was like a sword, the thunder like a man’s roar.
The sorceress suddenly threw her hands up, and a roaring stream of water formed a blue dragon that was a hundred feet tall, which then wrapped around the man falling from the sky. Shielding him from the ordinary lightning bolts that followed, it lowered him gently to the ground. A moment later, the storm ended as abruptly as it had begun.
The girl, dropping her hands and letting the water flow back into the pond, ran toward the man floating on the surface of the water… Kneeling beside him, she reached for the hair covering his face, but pulled her hand away with a shudder. The man’s skin was gray like a corpse’s. The man wore a torn, black robe with a hood. Beneath it, a powerful body with well-defined muscles was clearly visible. His body was covered in terrible scars from all kinds of weapons, teeth, and fangs. The man seemed like he’d been in the middle of a terrible battle from the day he was born. In his hand, he held a simple sword dripping with black blood.
Hadjar started. He recognized that sword: it was the same one that he’d carried in his own soul for several years, except his was made of black fog.
“That day, I couldn’t determine, or even roughly estimate, this man’s power.” The Shadow leaned over itself. It looked a little strange. “I should’ve known that a swordsman who fell alongside the black lightning bolt couldn’t be a simple, errant wanderer. I should’ve known how monstrously, horribly powerful he was. I should’ve expelled him, asked him to leave, or called the Sages, but instead…”
The Shadow waved her hand, and the vision changed. Hadjar was now standing in the center of a bustling city. Huge buildings disappeared into treetops. The stained-glass windows were multicolored and bright. People wearing simple clothes bustled around him. If not for the sheer complexity and beauty of the architecture, Hadjar would’ve thought he was back in Lidus. Even the boats that sailed the canals dotted with water lilies were almost identical to the ones that traversed the waters of the capital of Hadjar’s homeland.
The same girl from before ran out of a stone house built into a tree whose branches looked like lizard heads. Her hair being tied into a ponytail was the only thing that had changed from the scene at the pond. The same man from that memory followed after her. Hadjar couldn’t see his face. It was hidden by his unruly, long black hair. He leaned heavily on a crutch, his right leg tucked in beneath him.
“Hurry up, D-!” The girl shouted, but the sound of the man’s name was drowned out by the noise of the street.